


Runner up

by Pandorian_Gray



Category: Fate/Zero
Genre: Alternate Ending, Be Careful What You Wish For, Gen, Suffering, and a terrible time was had by all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-28
Updated: 2013-08-28
Packaged: 2017-12-24 22:56:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/945664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pandorian_Gray/pseuds/Pandorian_Gray
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"A righteous man...how could such  thing possibly exist?"<br/>basically a 'what if' someone other than Kiritsugu 'won'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Runner up

**Author's Note:**

> Of course it's mindbendingly depressing. I'm considering writing the other three but this was more of a 'if very slightly different things had happened in the final episode, so basically the Grail chose whoever was closest and still alive whether or not they won (since that's basically what it did with Kirei anyway) so in those cases i'd probably just...gloss over the scenarios of how they even got that far

There was an inhuman wail from the tar as the trigger was pulled, as Kotomine Kirei’s brains splattered against the wall behind him, as Kiritsugu Emiya’s body failed, several organs impaled at once, not even Avalon able to repair him in time, mirror images of gruesome death.

Waver Velvet didn’t know what had compelled him to come here, but didn’t have much time to ponder before the darkness swallowed him up, the hateful mire wrapping around him, burning, what about berserker’s master? Probably dead in an alley somewhere.

He was the closest living thing, and so without having won, he would be rewarded- that was what his consciousness told him, taking the form of Rider, dead and alive at once, just as he had been this entire time, his proud frame too calm, but his Master didn’t care.

He owed everything to him. Nothing else mattered.

“Do you remember that promise I made before you died?” he choked tearfully.

“Is that your wish?” the Iskander-Grail said in the familiar voice, once again too calm, Rider would have berated him for such foolishness, but it was too late for that- Rider was dead.

“Yes,” the young man whispered.

“Do you realize? You will be locked into this fate for all eternity.”

This Grail was not Holy, it was polluted, but the wish was true- horrible though it was, it was possible, it would be granted. Perhaps it could have been a pure wish if that thing wasn’t lurking within him, but Waver didn’t deserve such a thing as a pure wish after all.

“That is how long I wish to serve you.”

 

“Alexander the Great…has fallen.”

A fellow soldier gifted him with this news in June of the year 323. Waver Velvet stood, his stoicism eerie, he’d known it all along, that he couldn’t prevent it. He’d done his job, though, and so he nodded respectfully to his comrade, grabbed his sword and raised it calmly.

“Then I will fall as well.”

Without another word, he turned, his long hair fluttering as he marched onwards, towards Oceana.

Still marching a lifetime later, across the lines of soldiers, miles of desert, and that man, his King, Waver Velvet saw himself- a small, frightened young man. Beside him, Arturia Pendragon shielded Irisviel Von Einzbern from the dust that showered their forms. Gilgamesh glowered, unimpressed. Shadows stood around them, confused at this sudden intrusion- this world that existed only inside Ionioi Hetairoi, and Rider called them to charge.

_I will follow you until this world shatters._

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Who is ultimately more pitiful, a bee crushed underfoot, or the child it stings?”

Aoi Zenjou smiled, her expression melancholic. Kariya would not stand before her. He could hardly remember anything, just his own awfulness, the awfulness of everything, the futility of struggling like a moth stumbling from one spider web to the next until he was numb to whatever it was devouring him.

Aoi-san.

Aoi-san was dead wasn’t she?

 This was the Holy Grail?

He’d won?

No. There were no winners- a fully loaded gun touted as a game of Russian Roulette, “undo it” he whispered, and Aoi; no; The Grail paused, cocked her head to the side with a serene smile.

“Undo your fate?” she questioned, understanding, no, _misunderstanding_ ;

“All of it. Undo your wretched existence. I wish the Holy Grail never existed,” he whispered, bitter tears running down the right side of his face. “This and all Grails before it…are not worth seeking.”

“Do you realize what that will do?” she asked, her serenity slipping- he didn’t know what the sudden anger meant but he didn’t care, either.

“It’ll Undo me. It’ll undo Tohsaka, undo all of us, all the good and bad, I wish…I wish it had never happened!”

Her face was no longer serene, livid, livid as she’d been in the church that night, corrupted though it was the Grail itched to grant a wish, it had waited for so long, since conception-

“Nonexistence…is better than this fate.” Kariya Matou hissed, and it was done- a madman’s wish was still a wish, a corrupted Grail was still a Grail.

 

“The Vessel you seek…only a righteous man can behold its splendor,” that woman, Elaine, said calmly, the vision spread between her arms. Arturia Pendragon turned to the man who accompanied her, his own gaze coldly set on the vision the woman had prepared.

 _Can we truly obtain such a wonder_ , she pondered, the words stillborn, never leaving her lips- Lancelot had raised his sword before she could speak and brought it down upon the Lady Elaine’s head, her blood spilling across the floor, not even human blood, black as tar and bubbling hatefully.

“No!” her father shouted, voice echoing as the other six knights in the hall stood in various states of shock. “This wasn’t the vision God had granted me-“ and then he was dead too, Lancelot’s hands trembling as his severed head hit the floor, the deed done, nobody could move,  nobody in the room had expected it, Gawain was the first to question, stuttering out the word they were all pondering.

“ _Why?_ ”

“She said a righteous man could seek the Holy Grail…” Lancelot whispered. “A righteous man...how could such a thing possibly exist?”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Drowning in the mire spit out by that tainted vessel, Kotomine Kirei saw nothing. No vision no presence,  only emptiness like the feeling in his heart.

_If only I could have fixed that void._

It hurt. Death wasn’t supposed to hurt, was it? The hole in his heart- the literal one, stinging and raw, he wasn’t supposed to feel such a thing. He was dead, wasn’t he? What was death? Nothingness.

Blackness.

_I hate everything._

Where was that consciousness coming from? From himself, from someone else as well, it burned- the mire filling his lungs, stitching his punctured flesh back together, it razed his nerves like a wildfire. It wasn’t fair, that he had never felt anything good, that he was made corrupted, he’d never had a chance at anything else.

_You were born to shoulder everything wretched in this world. That is why you are hated._

Yes, that was it. His destiny was to be hated. 

“Burn them." The words stumbled from his lips, but were absolute. "Burn everything.”


End file.
